Tag: Chris Leben

Clear your schedules for August 9th, people. Like UFC 84, the three headlining bouts at “Seek and Destroy” are worth the cost of admission and the rest is just gravy. So, GSP/Fitch, Lesnar/Herring, and Florian/Huerta…who ya got?

Sort of related:The UFC has confirmed what most of us already knew — Michael Bisping and Chris Leben will meet at UFC 89, which will be held at the National Indoor Arena in Birmingham, England, on October 9th.

(‘These walls are funny. First you hate ‘em, then you get used to ‘em…’)

Chris Leben’s time in jail may have cost him a big time bout with Michael Bisping, but it does seem to have forced him to reflect on the state of his life. It also gave him the opportunity to choke out a convicted felon. Which is, you know, good to have on your resume.

He tells the story to MMA Weekly, describing what happened when his attempts to train in jail drew the curiosity of fellow inmates, who asked Leben to teach them a choke.

“I told the guys it’s a blood choke, so you don’t have to squeeze hard,” he said. “So I was just kind of choking him with one arm while he’s standing up. And I told him just tap when you start to feel like you’re going to pass out. Well, he didn’t tap, and at the time I’m going wow, this guy’s pretty tough, I’m surprised he hasn’t tapped yet. He just drops to the floor in the cell.

“Now I’m standing there with 20 prisoners around and they’re freaking out. This guy’s laying there, snoring like crazy. I’m like ‘it’s all right, it’s all right,’ then I realize they have cameras in here. I’ve just choked this guy out in jail – I could get in trouble for this. I kept telling them, ‘he’s fine, he’s fine,’ and it took this guy a minute to wake up. Finally he woke up and we had a laugh, and luckily I didn’t get in any trouble for it. That was beginning and the ending of my inmate coaching career.”

Two things here: 1) That’s awesome, and 2) The moment where Chris chokes out an inmate and then thinks it through long enough to realize that it was probably a bad idea is, I’m going to say, emblematic of the kind of approach to life that landed him there in the first place.

To his credit, Leben seems to have enough self-awareness to admit that:

— The main event will feature Michael Bisping taking on Chris Leben. (Thanks for listening, guys!)

— UFC 85 will possibly be broadcast on SpikeTV. That would be enough to appease American fans — with four solid matchups on the main card (including Vera/Werdum and Davis/Swick), it’ll be at least as entertaining as an “Ultimate Fight Night” — but a show without a true big-name headliner could potentially slow the UFC’s momentum in the U.K.

We’ll let you know when any of that is formally announced.

Somewhat related: You think seven weeks is a short layover for Michael Bisping? Well, Rich Clementi is only getting five before his next fight. “No Love,” who just scored a hard-fought split-decision victory over Sam Stout on the undercard of UFC 83, has been booked to replace an injured Rob Emerson in a lightweight match against Terry Etim at UFC 84 (May 24th, Las Vegas). Clementi has won his last three UFC bouts, including submission victories over Melvin Guillard and Anthony Johnson, while Etim took his first career loss via unanimous decision against Gleison Tibau at UFC 75.

“…we’ll see what happens. I think it’s going to be an interesting fight. Fedor just fought a pretty tall opponent in Hong Man Choi, so obviously he’s been in that mode of dealing with a guy that size, but I think Tim is a little more seasoned fighter than Hong Man has proved to be. But Hong Man wasn’t easy so it will be interesting to see how Emelianenko deals with him and a pretty good indicator for me, having just fought Tim this last year, as to where I stand and how things might go if I finally get the chance to fight Fedor.”

How hard was it for Randy to swallow this one down? He’s spent the past few months in a battle of words and lawsuits after leaving the UFC mainly so he could be the one to fight Fedor. Now Big Tim is allowed to leave the UFC and almost immediately starts negotiations to fight the Russian heavyweight. Dana White gets to sport his devilish grin for another day…

— The Natural’s wife — fresh off her first MMA win — chatted with FightHype about her win, her future in MMA, and her husband’s future in MMA. But she also attempts to make us feel sorry for her because she has to shoulder the cross of the Couture name.

“I think it would probably be cool to go through this experience without the last name Couture.”

We look forward to the comments from Potato reader, Kim Couture is a c***.

“We’re talking to Joe (Silva – UFC Match Maker), and we’re starting to look for a fight. If you win 4 or 5 fights in a row, you’re pretty much guaranteed a title shot, so I figured maybe Okami or Bisping would be a fun fight for me.”

Would another fight with Anderson Silva turn out any differently than his last meeting with the middleweight god? Of course not. But we’d be into both Okami and Bisping — and wins over both wouldn’t be something the UFC could ignore. Leben is 18-4 overall, but is 3-3 since he met Anderson Silva in the summer of ’06. He’s got two wins in a row and if he needs 4 or 5 W’s in a row, that’d probably put him in line for a title shot sometime next year. Provided he doesn’t get KTFO by his drunken friends first.

Anderson Silva left the Nationwide Arena on Saturday night with the bank account of a champion, pulling in $120,000 in bonuses on top of his usual salary and win bonus (which were $60,000 each for his previous title defense at UFC 77). As announced in a press conference following the event, the UFC distributed its customary end-of-night bonuses like this:

Fight of the Night: $60,000 each for Anderson Silva and Dan Henderson.

Submission of the Night: $60,000 for Anderson Silva. It was the night’s only submission, unless you count the tapout-by-strikes that Diego Sanchez scored at the expense of David Bielkheden.

Knockout of the Night: $60,000 for Chris Leben.

So, another 1-for-3 performance on our bonus predictions, though we did call Arlovski for a KO/TKO in the second round. And Diego did technically win by submission. You know, I think we’ll just start predicting the outcomes from now on; we’d sound a lot smarter that way.

That’s right! The UFC has officially added a middleweight bout between Chris Leben and Alessio Sakara to next month’s “Pride of a Champion” event — which is all good, but due to a lapse in judgement, it has been slated for the main card, and the scheduled fight between Diego Sanchez and David Bielkheden has been dropped to the prelims. (The full UFC 82 card, as it stands now, can be seen here).

We already know why Arlovski is being given a potentially untelevised undercard match, and we’d love to know what Diego Sanchez and Josh Koscheck did to deserve their dark-card status. We can’t help but see the main-card placement of Leben/Sakara — both of whom are 2-2 in their last four UFC fights and not particularly popular among fans — as a clear message that Sanchez and Koscheck are no longer in favor. Have they been bitching about money lately too? Does Dana White blame Sanchez for driving away Ali Sonoma? Did the UFC realize that Josh Koscheck’s hair gives people nightmares? Maybe if Leben and Sakara were hometown boys it would make more sense, but Hawaii and Italy are a long way off from Columbus.

To be honest, we get why any fighter who drops two in a row (a la Sanchez) might need to do a little penance, but Koscheck is coming off his first loss in six fights — against GSP, no less — and that doesn’t make him less of a draw than Chris freakin’ Leben. So yeah, mighty suspicious. We’ll do some digging and let you know what we come up with.

Before he was the scariest man in the UFC, Anderson Silva had to make a name for himself at a lowly Ultimate Fight Night against Chris “Bed Pisser” Leben. Leben had put together five straight UFC wins by the time he stepped into the Octagon against the Spider at UFN 5 (6/28/06), but he was woefully outgunned by Silva’s laser-guided striking, and the match was called in less than a minute. Silva got a title shot against Rich Franklin for his very next fight.